Commando

John Matrix is a retired Commando living with his young daughter in the mountains. They have a good life and get on well.

When it appears that Matrix's old team are being killed off one by one, his old boss pays him a visit to check he's ok, but they are attacked and Matrix's daughter is kidnapped.
To get her back, he must assassinate a South American Dictator... but Matrix knows the baddies will kill her anyway, so he goes on a one man rampage of revenge to get his daughter back and bring his own version of justice to the bad guys.

A seriously cheesey action gem in the movie world.

Commando gives the audience the biggest no-brainer ever concieved. It's simply an engine for explosions and watching Big Arhnuld fire guns at a never ending line up of perfectly lined up and synchronised henchmen.

The dialogue is cringeworthy, the acting is almost non-existent and the screenplay is, as I've mentioned in some other posts on here, simply a non-stop relentless march of victory for our musclebound hero.

What makes Commando work though, is that all of these things are so bad that they're actually good.
The cheese factor involved gives the film a very comicbook style to the violence and louder action scenes and the one liners that Arnie spouts off in quick succession are pretty much the benchmark for all of his other tongue-in-cheek movies that followed.

There are some elements of genuinely made cinema though. Some of the smaller plot elements like the backstory of Matrix and antagonist Bennett are well utilised and Arn's relationship with his daughter and his love interest are pretty well pieced together.

Along with Arnie we have Rent-A-Baddie Vernon Wells as Arn's nemesis called Bennett. As usual with Wells, he's highly camp, hardly threatening and extremely wooden. He hold his own against Arn though when they're on screen together.
Dan Hedaya makes a good appearance as the South American Dictator though. His accent is abysmal but his presence on screen is pretty good.

Rae Dawn Chong is probably the best part of the cast. She plays the role well and adds an element of realism to the mix and is well cast as an unwilling/unwitting love interest for the hero.

A young Alyssa Milano plays Big Arn's daughter and an early turn from Bill Duke is always a pleasure to watch.

The action though, even though it's full of highly tongue-in-cheek elements, is actually pretty exciting. Lots of guns, lots of fist fights and a few car chases to boot.
We also get to see Arn armour himself up and stick a load of camo paint on... even though he's going into a brick built Villa on the coast.

There's also a brilliantly dated soundtrack too.

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All in all, not for everyone's taste and technically it's an awful, awful movie... but it's actually so-bad-it's-good... and has to be marked upwards for this rather than marked down.
An 80s Classic No-Brainer that set a benchmark for cheese and wooden acting... and yes, even with the low score in the technical department, I'd still recommend it for a night in... just leave your brain at the door.

My rating: 68%